Stand and Deliver!: And other Brilliant Ways to Give Birth. Emma Mahony

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      To find a local reflexologist, contact the Association of Reflexologists at 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3XX (tel. 0870 567 3320) or visit www.aor.org.uk., and click on Find A Reflexologist.

      Acupuncture and Shiatsu Massage

      Acupuncture deserves special recognition in pregnancy because it is used with a specific technique called moxibustion, which involves the use of compressed herb sticks as heat sources above acupuncture points on the feet to turn a breech baby to head-first. What is more, it claims a 60 per cent success rate.⁶ Acupuncture can also be used for other common pregnancy complaints. If you have never had it before, pregnancy is a good time to start, and it is rather an exciting treatment to have. The sensation of a fine needle being inserted into your skin and the subsequent tingling sensation, which feels like liquid evaporating on your skin as the blockage becomes unblocked, is an extraordinary feeling. In China, acupuncturists are even used to alleviate pain during labour (a sort of needle-happy TENS machine), and for anaesthesia with Caesarean sections.

      Shiatsu massage, which is Japanese for ‘finger pressure’, has the added advantage that you don’t need to take your clothes off to have it. No small bonus if, like me, you were waddling in on a cold December day. Shiatsu uses simple pressure and holding techniques and is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, using the principles of meridians and energy lines throughout the body, like acupuncture. It increases circulation, gets rid of toxins and is a gentle way to spend an hour on the floor. I used to book my next session in a dream-like state immediately afterwards – and probably spent the best part of the twins’ annual babygro budget like this.

      For details of qualified therapists contact the British Acupuncture Council, 63 Jeddoe Road, London W12 9HQ (tel. 0208 735 0400) or visit www.acupuncture.org.uk and click on Find an Acupuncturist. For The Shiatsu Society, it’s Eastlands Court, St Peters Road, Rugby CV21 3QP (tel. 0845 1304560) or visit www.shiatsu.org.

      Birth Balls

      OK, OK, you don’t mind signing up for the reflexology and massage session, but you just can’t face the swimming pool or even the yoga class in your current state.

      Enter the Birth Ball, the final resort for those for whom exercise is a dirty word. It exercises you while you sit on it, without you having to do anything. No, it’s not some sort of pregnancy slendertone, it is a big thick latex ball which promises not to burst (it can take up to 300 lb/21½ stone in weight) and tones the supportive muscles in your spine. Remember those fashionable gym shoes that cost a fortune? The ones based on the Masai tribe in Africa who were noted as having the best posture in the human race because they walked barefoot on uneven ground? Apparently having to correct your posture continually tightens up all those lazy leg muscles. The Gym or Birth Ball works on the same principle – just the act of staying on top of the ball while you are doing your make-up or watching telly, keeps you toned and ‘helps your baby get into the optimal foetal position’ by raising your hips higher than your knees. Besides, you can use it after the birth as a handy computer stool, as this typed sentence proves, and for bouncing your toddlers away from the keyboard as they sit on your knee swiping at it with sticky fingers.

      For extroverts who want to bring it in to the hospital, may I just issue one word of warning. A friend Rosie fell pregnant in New York and could not get her birthing ball into the boot of the yellow cab as she contracted away on the pavement. In the end she sailed off to hospital leaving the blue spacehopper behind. Check your boot size, or inflate it once installed, before rolling in to hospital.

      For the most comprehensive essay ever written on the benefits of a birth ball, visit (and buy) from www.activebirthcentre.com. At the time of writing it’s yours for £29.95 plus pump.

      Chung and Shake Those Apples

      Because labour is all about trying to get you to relax so that the cervix will dilate, you can always show this page to your midwives ahead of time to ask whether they might be game for some way-out ways of helping labour progress.

      For example, what our German friends call die äpfel schüttelm or ‘shaking the apples’ is a technique whereby the buttocks or thighs are jostled rhythmically as a way of softening up a mother’s tension in the legs.

      Alternatively, you could try to ‘Chung’, a practice favoured in rural China. The labouring mother stands up, surrounded by her midwives, who then proceed to shake her vigorously. Despite the fact that it looks painful to the onlooker, one American midwife who observed Chunging in action said that the woman swore afterwards that it felt great.

      Another firm favourite, which is a little less offbeam, is the salsa dance. This I witnessed in action on the Discovery Health Channel when a series called Portland Babies ran in March 2004. There was a lovely moment during one birth when the midwives Fiona and Liz wanted to get labour going for a mother who seemed resigned to lie on her back. They showed her how to do the ‘salsa dance’ by standing with her feet a hip-width apart and rocking her hips from side to side. The midwives did it with her and within minutes the atmosphere in the room had changed from a downbeat to an upbeat one as everyone started giggling. The dancing really did get things going, and the mother still got to lie down, on her side, to birth her baby soon after.

      Bottom Jokes

      While we are firmly into our bodies, it is time to have a brief word about bottoms. Bottoms are useful things, because their workings can help us understand about what happens in labour. I was told by a friend who had an epidural birth that delivering a baby was like ‘pushing a basketball out of your bum’. Certainly true if you are anaesthetized from the waist down and left guessing at how to get the baby out (not so if you are endorphined up to the eyeballs and your body is doing it for you).

      Bottoms are particularly useful for teaching you about some of the reactions that you might experience during birth – a subject called ‘Sphincter Law’, and described by Ina May Gaskin in her Guide to Childbirth (Random House, 2003). All sphincters, including the cervix and vagina, obey certain rules. In a nutshell, they are as follows:

      a) sphincters function best in an atmosphere of familiarity and privacy

      b) sphincters do not obey orders, such as ‘Push!’ or ‘Just Relax!’

      c) a person’s sphincter in the process of opening may suddenly close down if that person becomes upset, frightened, humiliated or self-conscious

      d) a relaxed mouth and jaw (laughing, singing, speaking loving words, telling bottom jokes or mooing are particularly recommended) is directly correlated to the ability of the cervix, vagina or anus to open to full capacity.

      This last tenet of the law could be practised in the bathroom when next sitting on the pot home alone.

      You only have to remember the last time you clamped up in the office loo when the boss walked in, or the last bout of constipation brought on by travelling through foreign towns with restrooms that you didn’t want to visit, to know that Gaskin is right. ‘According to Sphincter Law, labours that don’t result in a normal birth after a “reasonable” amount of time are often slowed or stalled because of lack of privacy, fear and stimulation of the wrong part of the labouring woman’s brain,’ she writes. If you fear that Sphincter Law will not be respected in your chosen place of birth, perhaps it is wise investing in a Do-not-disturb sign or a bouncer at the door. Finally, when in labour, midwife Mary Cronk advises that you remember the Four Fs: Feel Free to Fart Freely.

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